Water water everywhere (and some good birds)

Stayed local over the weekend as my parents were visiting. Was hoping to explore several quieter areas within the valley but due to the poor weather this wasn't able to happen so we made several trips to North Duffield to sit in the hide and also visited Castle Howard.

Saturday morning I was in the hide at North Duffield at 5am hoping for something interesting. I wasn't disappointed, it was amazing! In the space of 2 hours I'd had 60 species all from my seat in the hide! There was many highlights including 2 (possibly 4) Avocet that flew north through the valley (a site/area tick for me), drake Garganey, 13 Whimbrel, 20 Black-tailed Godwit, 3 Greenshank and 6 Dunlin flew through, plus my first singing Cuckoo of the year and a pair of Grey Partridge. Pretty impressive dawn chorus activity too.

The calm before the storm 

The calm before the storm

The local dog walked was interesting as I had a new site tick in the form of a single Whimbrel in a sheep field and then 2 singing male Lesser Whitethroats (along with male Blackcap, Common Whitethroat and Willow Warbler) that showed really well.

Castle Howard was freezing cold, blowing a gale with heavy showers, therefore many of the birds were keeping sheltered and hidden.  A couple of Blackcap showed well, as did a number of House Martin, Sand Martin and a couple of Swift.

This morning it was fairly difficult as it was raining with the wind blowing it straight into the hide.  The water was pouring off the river and it's surely only a matter of time before the river bursts its bank properly. Highlights this morning were fewer, however a Mediterranean Gull (site tick for me) made it worth dragging myself out of bed! There was fewer Whimbrel, about 6 or so with 4 Greenshank now present, up from 2 on Friday night, and 3 on Saturday.

3 Greenshank (phone-scoped)

This evening I popped down briefly and had approximately 20 Whimbrel, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Short-eared Owl, 2 Greenshank, 5 Redshank, 3 Oystercatcher and all the usual suspects. A brief flight of a potential Little Gull was a little frustrating as it dropped down below the river bank and wasn't seen again!

Who said Mallard were boring???

Just catching up with a few of the great blogs that I read and the following, from the Lower Derwent Valley NNR blog caught my eye, its about Mallard...:

[Ring number] GN12614, a Mallard caught and ringed at Wheldrake on 28/06/99 was re-caught today [Saturday 25th 2012] at North Duffield Carrs. That’s nearly 13 years since ringing and makes it at least 14 years old. Interesting that it’s not been re-caught since, so you have to wonder where it’s been since we last saw it. It’s certainly a good age for such a popular quarry species, the longevity record [for Mallard] from the BTO ringing in the UK is 20 years and 5 months.

This is cool, and one of the great things about ringing! Anyone who doesn't know the area Wheldrake is a few Kms north of North Duffield. Where has it been for the last 13 years??? Loads of waterfowl ringing goes on in the LDV so really surprising that its not been recaught prior to now!


Drake Mallard Photo Bert de Tilly

I was at a Wedding up in Pateley Bridge this weekend, a really beautiful location and had a great time. There was plenty of Red Kite about which is always nice to see! A morning walk round the village of Spofforth with Mike Bowman Images was really enjoyable too with lots of Red Kite, singing Yellowhammer, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Dunnock, vocal Great Spotted Woodpecker, several Long-tailed Tit and nest prospecting Jackdaw.

This evening I thought I'd take a quick look at North Duffield Carrs, it was fairly quite but a single Barn Owl and almost 40 Curlew were good. No sign of any more Short-eared Owls unfortunately. There had been a Bar-headed Goose on the reserve in the morning but unfortunately this had gone before I got down there.

Pintail Garden Tick!

I worked at home today, the weather was appalling for the majority of the day but as I looked out of the window nearing dusk I was pleased to note a huge flock of ducks, getting on for 500 birds, mainly Wigeon and Teal and the odd Mallard but mixed in with them was getting on for a dozen or so Pintail - a new garden tick!

They flew in the direction of Skipwith Common from North Duffield and appeared to go down there - but not sure where given how dry it is on the Common at the moment! Presumably there had been something going on in the LDV that flushed the lot of them! If only there was some water down there I might have got some diving ducks in with them! Though it does give me hope for the winter...


Pintail © Mark and Jen Rowlands 2009

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! (Savi's Warbler, Booted Eagle, Rufous Turtle Dove and Cretzschmar's Bunting UPDATE

A beautiful day yesterday and again today but (un)fortunately I'm flat out at work at the moment so couldn't make the most of the good weather and go out birding so spent the weekend report writing.

The Spurn area sounded good today with only it's second ever Savi's Warbler (only other was 1984) recorded at Sammy's Point - technically just outside the Spurn recording area I guess but not by far. The winds are set for SE for a bit so there could be more following on from the Red-rumped Swallow and Bee-eater from last week and today's Savi's. Typically elusive I'm glad I had good views of the Old Moor bird last spring otherwise I might have been having a frustrating evening...

Back home over the weekend I added Willow Warbler to my garden list, my 70th garden tick, and today a great surprise as a Cuckoo flew towards North Duffield Carrs over the back behind the house, number 71! A very pleasing addition to my garden list!


Common Cuckoo © Gabriel Buissart 2007

There has been some 'interesting' reports over the weekend, firstly a Cretzschmar's Bunting in Dorest that didn't materialize into anything (though there was an Ortolan in the county), a Rufous Turtle Dove was apparently photographed in a Suffolk garden but has not been seen since (with some grainy shots and talk of dodgy goings on) and today a probable 'dark-phase' Booted Eagle was reported in Lincolnshire (at the same site a White-tailed Eagle was reported 4 days ago)...

I'll hopefully get into the Lower Derwent Valley for a bit of patch work this week at some point to see what I can catch up with. I might try and connect with Ollie and Jono's Water Pipit at York University too. Then there's the Black Scoter too...